The state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd has provided telephone connectivity to sparsely populated Gnathang village of East Sikkim, located at an altitude of 14,000 feet close to the China-India border at Nathu La, a senior official said.
The Gnathang village has been provided with Village Public Telephone (VPT) connectivity and STD/PCOs recently after years of herculean efforts put in by the team of engineers and staff of the BSNL General Manager (Sikkim region) S N Roychowdhuri said here yesterday.
The mobile connectivity to remote villages would also be provided by March 2009, he said.
Referring to the lack of telephone service at Nathu La, Roychowdhuri said the telephone service could not be provided there in view of possible objection by Chinese authorities.
However, telecom major has provided Internet and broadband facilities for the benefit of the troops deployed at the Nathu La border, the official said.
Roychowdhuri also outlined the PSU telecom company's expansion plan in the rural areas of Sikkim and said that a low cost service has been introduced in the rural areas under which a customer may obtain landline connection with an application fee of Rs 200 and monthly rental fee of Rs 20 from exchanges local exchanges.
The improvement in quality of the telephone and broadband services being provided by the BSNL has been undertaken on priority basis with the proposed laying of Optical Fibre Cables (OFC) link via Darjeeling and Nayabazar and Namchi.